Why Was This Movie Even Made?

`Idle Hands' Drips Blood, Lacks Comedy

May 01, 1999|By MALCOLM JOHNSON; Courant Film Critic

Even if the horrors at Columbine High School had never occurred, ''Idle Hands'' would still be a rotten and tasteless piece of cinematic junk. But because Columbia Pictures elected not to delay its release, this tale of a high schooler who kills his parents, his friends and assorted other townsfolk proves virtually unwatchable.

Bucktoothed, gangly Devon Sawa has the career-wrecking role of Anton, a dope-smoking teen layabout who loses control of one of his hands. It is not explained why, but even before the film begins, the hand has been killing people. Only a druidic priestess with an exotic wavy dagger can stop the hand's murderous rampage.

''Idle Hands'' has appropriated an idea from ''The Hands of Orlac'' or ''Mad Love'' and mindlessly perverted the tale of a pianist who has the hands of a murderer grafted to his arms. In this retelling of Maurice Renard's novel, Anton awakens on the day before Halloween to discover that both his parents have turned into bloody corpses overnight. He does not tumble to the idea that he is the killer until after he fails to buy drugs from his two chums, Mick and Pnub. Later, when the fellow losers come to call and stumble upon the remains of Mom and Dad, butchered for overdoing the Oct. 31 decor, the hand goes hog wild.

Mick, a little wiseguy as played by Seth Green (in happier days, the boy Woody Allen in ''Radio Days''), gets a broken soda bottle planted in his forehead. Pnub, a stout jocular type and wannabe babe magnet as played by Elden Henson, is decapitated by a smartly thrown power saw blade.

Anton, who is forever grabbing the bad hand in hopes of taming it, buries his pals and his parents. The boys come back to life, but not the elders. Sight gags involving Pnub's severed head abound.

Somehow, despite his idiotic behavior and frequent flailing about, Anton attracts the interest of the beautiful girl across the street, Molly, provocatively played by Jessica Alba. She persuades Anton to take her tothe Halloween dance.

Meanwhile, the druid sorceress, rather desperately acted by Vivica A. Fox, is heading for the town where she figures the nasty hand will strike next. Upon arriving, she hooks up with a local stud, Randy, cockily rendered by Jack Noseworthy. This allows Rodman Flender, the director, to ridicule a shrine built in memory of twins murdered at a fast-food joint.

Desperate to separate himself from the hand, Anton amputates the offending member and nukes it in the microwave. But nothing can stop the occult hand. Charred but more satanicthan ever, the fickle fingers of fate charge like the Addams family's Thing toward the high school gym, where costumed adolescent ghouls await slaughter.

With a profusion of carved pumpkins and costumes, ''Idle Hands'' would more appropriately have been slated for a late October release. Arriving as it has, however, it offers teenagers a chance to make a statement. The best response is just to say no to this heavy-handed splatter comedy.

Rated R, this film contains rude talk, drug jokes, nudity, graphic

sex and lots of gory special effects that are fortunately not terribly convincing.